We Remember Woody: Pushing buttons

In this installment of "We Remember Woody", we take a look at some of the light-hearted moments with Woody Hayes. Recently I had the chance to visit with the greatest combination punter and kicker in Ohio State history, Tom Skladany.

Skladany was an All-American for the Buckeyes in 1974, 1975 and 1976 and played six years in the NFL for the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles.

The Buckeyes were 40-2-5 during Skladany's years at TOSU. He is in the top-five of a majority of the Ohio State kicking and punting records and he played all four years for Wayne Woodrow "Woody" Hayes.

Woody Hayes had some tremendous kickers while he was head coach at Ohio State including Tom Klaban, Vic Janowicz, Bob Atha, Blair Conway and Vlade Janakievski but Tom Skladany was arguably the very best and he was also quite a character, who always kept Woody on his toes.

Here are a few of his memories about Woody Hayes:

I have so many stories about Woody, but a few that come right to my mind happened during Michigan week in 1973. I was a freshman, so that was my first introduction to the Team Up North game.

We are at practice in Ohio Stadium and Woody has two cops on top of Lincoln and Morrill Towers. He would point them out every day in practice. He said that, 'We have to keep those guys up there to keep Bo (Michigan Head Coach Bo Schembechler) from filming our practices.'

Now, you know Schembechler wasn't filming our practices, but it just put something in your head to make you get pissed off at Michigan even more.

Woody also did something that week which backfired on him. He had crowd noise and screaming piped into the stadium and it was so loud that Corny (Buckeye Quarterback Cornelius Greene) was screaming out plays all week and he got laryngitis. So we had to use hand signals in the game.

Skladany went on with his recollections from the 1973 game.

The biggest thing I remember from the 73 Michigan game was that I got crushed on the opening kickoff. Doug Plank and I were tied for the team lead in tackles on kickoffs that season and I was running down the field after the kick, in my lane and I had the return man dead to rights. That's when a Michigan guy clipped me. I dislocated my ankle and broke my tibia.

Doctor Bob (Team Physician, Dr. Robert Murphy) is taking care of me on the sidelines, when Woody comes up and says, 'How is he?'

Dr. Bob just shook his head no. Woody then said, "He can't punt then?'

Dr. Bob said no again. Then, Woody said, 'How about kickoffs?'

What was he thinking? I was too hurt to punt, but might not be hurt enough to kick off? I was just crying laughing, even though I was hurt bad.

The former Buckeye would go on to recall the humorous side of Woody, a side that few Buckeye fans ever had a chance to see.

I used to have more fun with Woody than anyone would believe, because he did actually have a sense of humor and he was hilarious. I remember one day and I must have been a junior. It was 80 degrees with no wind and it was beautiful. It was in the spring and it must have been one of our off days. Woody called me on the phone and said, 'Hey Tom, are you punting today?; and I said, 'No'.

He just loved to watch punts, I don't know if you knew that. Woody would just stand there, asking about the wind, watching the trajectory.

Then Woody said, 'Dammit, you should be out there punting! It's a beautiful day, what the hell is the matter with you?' and I said, 'Coach, I can't punt today because I have to call the air traffic controllers at Port Columbus and give 24 hour notice, so they can re-direct the flights.'

And Woody says, 'What?!' and I say, "yeah Coach, I can't go out there just anytime I want.'

Then he knew that I was just jerking him around and I hear him say, 'I don't need this. I just don't need this!'

He hangs up on me and then he calls (Ohio State kicking coach) Coach Ralph Staub. Coach Staub calls me up and says, 'Hey, are you messing with Woody?' And I said, 'No coach, why?'

And Staub says, 'Because Woody just called me and told me to keep you away from him.'

Oh God, It was unbelievable because Woody was really serious and I was just deadpanned. It was so funny.

Skladany was one of the few of us that had the ability to bring out the lighter side of Woody and push his buttons. It is a side of Woody that the masses very rarely saw. We as former players didn't see it too often either, but we sure enjoyed it when we did.

[rl]